Service-oriented architecture (SOA) provides a set of principles used during systems development and integration. Functionality is provided as interoperable services; for example, software modules provided as a service can be used by several entities, even if their respective client systems are substantially different. An implementation of SOA is denoted a service oriented architecture implementation. Instead of defining an application program interface (API), SOA defines the interface in terms of protocols and functionality. The entry point to such an SOA implementation is referred to as an endpoint.
In remote managed services, service providers use their own fixed network operations center to remotely monitor and manage clients' information technology (IT) infrastructure elements such as networks, system hardware and software, operating systems and applications.
The current pricing methodology for remote managed services consists of a manual evaluation of the equipment and labor involved in the services provided for a customer's site, based on the number of systems to be monitored and the operating system (OS) type of the systems. This limited information is insufficient to accurately forecast the number of incidents a particular endpoint may generate, as well as the storage volume required to record the monitoring data of those end-points. Thus, the price currently evaluated is typically not commensurate with the cost of providing the service.